


What's Past is Prologue

by jolene_rose



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mentions of Men of Letters, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Rowena MacLeod/Sam Winchester if you really squint at it, Rowena's redemption, Team Free Will 2.0 (Supernatural), Witch Hunts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 11:24:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19904947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolene_rose/pseuds/jolene_rose
Summary: Assisting Sam in research for a case uncovers some long-buried pain for Rowena.  Not strictly a Samwena story, but it's there if you're really into subtext.





	What's Past is Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still working to finish my Rowena backstory, Impetus, but this little two-scene look at Sam and Rowena popped into my head today and begged to be written, probably because I've visited Salem, MA twice in the last few weeks. It's set somewhere in season 13-14, after Rowena becomes an unofficial part of the team, but before her possession by Michael. Just the two of them working on a random case. I don't know if it's any good, as it's pretty much just straight out of my brain and hasn't been reread and edited to death like the way I usually write. But I feel like they're pretty in-character and it captures their relationship pretty well. Made me smile, anyway. -Jo

“Maybe it isn't here after all,” Sam sighed, tossing a leather-bound notebook on top of a disorderly pile of similar volumes on a table. He and Rowena had spent the entire morning scouring the Men of Letters library, searching for anything they could find on a long-disused curse the hunters had encountered on their current case.

“No, it _must_ be!” Rowena stated emphatically, “Olivette said that the Men of Letters took everything when they raided the Grand Coven – our spell books, crystals, hex bags – and all of it would have eventually ended up here, in the last remaining American bunker. From what I heard, not a single witch escaped that violent incursion with _any_ object or document the Men of Letters considered valuable. The text of the curse – or at least some note about it – it _has_ to be here!” By now, Rowena had risen and circled the table, rapidly shuffling through a pile of loose papers that had been strewn there haphazardly in their search. Sam was a bit surprised by her intensity. She wore a look of deep concentration as she scanned line after line of handwritten spells and research, but Sam noticed that her eyes were wet with unshed tears.

“Maybe we should take a break,” he said cautiously, “come back with fresh eyes.” Sam stood and moved to where Rowena was still absorbed in her search.

“No!” she nearly shouted, still looking down at the mess of pages before her, “I remember hearing about this curse before, when I was still a member of the coven. They took _everything_! It's here somewhere, we just have to keep looking!” The end of her sentence was choked as a lump formed in her throat.

“Rowena,” Sam said gently, taking hold of her frantically moving hands, “I need a break. _You_ need a break.” He glanced pointedly at her tremoring right hand, still clutching a yellowed paper covered in Gaelic writing. It trembled with her and made a light rippling sound. “We'll have some lunch, maybe a little wine – regroup.”

She met his eyes, then looked back down at the document-strewn table and sighed, releasing the page from her grasp.

“Fine,” she acquiesced, and allowed the giant to lead her to the kitchen with his large hand pressed comfortingly against her shoulder blade.

Sam and Rowena sat down to a thrown-together salad of spinach, tomato, avocado, and vinaigrette (a couple of rabbits, if Dean had ever seen any). They sipped glasses of what the Winchesters described as “very sweet, very pink” wine, from a bottle of Moscato they kept at the back of the fridge solely for Rowena's benefit, or so they said. She, however, had proven on multiple occasions that, true to her roots and contrary to her size, she could drink both of them under the table when it came to Scotch whiskey, so it could be speculated that the boys enjoyed the fruity pink beverage now and again, even when the witch was nowhere around.

Rowena seemed much more at ease with a little rest and refreshment, but her outburst in the library was still bothering Sam.

“Are you okay?” he asked her, abruptly diverging from the humorous conversation they were having about Dean's dietary habits.

She cast him a sideways glance, her glass half-way to her lips. “Aye,” she laughed. “I'm over three hundred years old and an _immensely_ powerful witch. A wee bit of midday wine isn't going to have me guttered,” she said, gesturing lightly with the glass.

“No,” Sam said, smiling, “I mean.. You seemed to be getting kind of... emotional, back in the library. Is everything okay?”

Rowena's lips pressed into a line as she observed the concern on Sam's face. “I'm fine,” she said. Spoken just like a Winchester. “Just, digging through all of the plunder from the Grand Coven, it... brought up some old feelings, that's all.”

“Such as?”

“Such as _hating_ the Men of Letters! No offense,” she said, raising her hand in a placating gesture, “but some of your forebears were not as... liberal-minded as yourself when it came to people of my ilk. And I understand their desire to wipe out borrowers and others who use the craft for evil. I suppose I, too, perhaps, deserved to die for the harm I've caused” – she looked to Sam for an indication of his opinion on that subject, but was met with only his compassionate “listening face” – “But many who were, like myself, born with this gift, were slaughtered simply for existing! Having caused harm to no one! We were hunted and persecuted and murdered by Men of Letters by the hundreds! Civilians fed with their propaganda killed tens of thousands of non-magics worldwide, merely on _suspicion_ that they were witches! To be so hated for something so beyond our control as our fundamental being... Perhaps that's why so many of us decided to live up to their expectations...” From the faraway look in her eyes Sam could tell it was the first time this bit of self-reflection had crossed Rowena's mind.

“I'm sorry, Rowena,” Sam said earnestly, “What you went through, you and the other witches, is terrible. I'm ashamed to admit, I've never really thought about it like that.”

“Och, aye, people rarely do.” She took a long sip of her drink and set it down carefully. “But, 'what's past is prologue,'” she quoted with a shade of bitterness in her voice. “I'm working with the 'good guys' now. Redeeming myself. Saving people – saving the world, as needed. Throwing myself in to the fray for the greater good!”

“Yeah, I think you've earned full membership in 'Team Free Will 2.0' by now,” Sam said, giving her a crooked smile.

“Magnificent,” she said mockingly, but she couldn't help but smile back, “I'll expecting my team jersey any day then. Extra-small, preferably in a flattering cut. And MacLeod is spelled M- _a_ -c, uppercase L, e-o-d, not like a cloud in the sky.” She gestured vaguely upward and rolled her eyes.

“Got it,” Sam replied with a laugh. He got up with his plate and walked toward the sink.

“Samuel?” Rowena shifted in her seat to face him.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“No problem. You're part of the team. We take care of our own.”


End file.
